With summer vacation coming to close, the kids are heading back to school, and once again it’s time to prepare for the harvest. For some, it’s a bittersweet time as kids venture out into the wildernesses of kindergarten through college. For others, it’s a welcome return to a routine of days begun without Finneas and Ferb, followed by the freedom to indulge in an intense focus on work without the whiny pitches of, “Maaahhhhmmeeeeeeeee! I need a snnnaaa-aaack” at regular intervals.

I hope you all had a good summer. Maybe you took a vacation. Me? If you’d been reading my blogs you won’t be surprised to hear that Central Texas destroyed every one of its existing heat records dating back to 1854, and along with it, my desire for my annual beach trip.

Heat exhaustion can do strange things to a person. Some see things like a mirage in a desert. Others might hear ringing in their ears. When I saw my vehicle’s thermostat register 130 F in my driveway, I listened for fire truck sirens.

Instead I heard the call of the wild, which emphatically told me to head north and keep going until I reached a glacier or something. Call of the wild? More like call of the brilliant ideas!

I was really glad I answered that call. It led me to a cabin in the North Woods of Minnesota on Lake Superior. Ok, it’s not a glacier but it used to be. After chilling for a while (under wool blankets!), I returned home recharged and ready for the harvest. For Pulse, our harvest goals include recruiting 300 Service Management experts to speak at Pulse 2010 by October 16.

Enlighten Us: How Are Your Bright Ideas Helping to Build a Smarter Planet?

Pulse will return to the MGM Grand in Las Vegas February 27 through March 2, 2011 to bring over 6000 attendees the best practices, solutions and expertise needed to help organizations design, deliver and manage new, innovative business services - smarter services that drive unique client value and competitive advantage.

Over 300 client presentations will demonstrate how Integrated Service Management helped organizations gain an end-to-end view of business services across boundaries to effectively manage risk and compliance, change the economics of delivering service and achieve common business objectives. We invite you to submit your proposal to present at Pulse 2011!

CLIENT SPEAKER BENEFITS

Pulse 2011 client speakers will receive complimentary registration to the conference, and the first 50 to submit a proposal will receive a FREE hotel accommodations upgrade* to a Celebrity Spa Suite at the MGM Grand if the proposal is accepted!
*The speaker pays for the basic room and will be awarded the upgrade if they submit one of the first 50 papers to be accepted.

Client Speaker Benefits include:

One full conference pass ($1995 value)

Use of our exclusive Client Speaker VIP Lounge

Networking opportunities with over 6000 industry experts, press, and analysts

Eligibility for the Maximo Best Practices Award (EAM papers only).

HOW TO SUBMIT A PROPOSAL

Proposals will include a 100-word abstract that outlines a unique organizational experience based on, but not limited to, one of the following scenarios:

Service architectures tailored by industry that address unique service delivery challenges including security, storage and compliance requirements.
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Service life-cycle management that bridge workflow across line of business, enterprise architecture, software development and testing, IT operations (data center, security, storage, and network operations), and business operations (production and facilities) to ensure successful “go-live” and continual improvement of applications and services.

Service dashboards that enable audiences from executives and business operations to IT managers to see the service and gain insight into service health, integrity (security and storage), and business activity.

Unified management of service requests and problems spanning business and IT that enable work orders to be automatically routed to the right support staff.

Asset management that supports both enterprise and IT assets across all asset classes with a single process model and a single data model.

Hi Carol, go to www.ibm.com/PULSE and click on the link for "Submit
a Presentation." Browse through the more recent blog entries and
you can find one for How to prepare using the online paper
submission tool. Thanks and see you at Pulse!

Do you have knowledge gleaned from experience about the following? If you do, please attend this morning's LIVE Virtual Event.

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Service architectures
tailored by industry that address unique service delivery challenges
including security, storage and compliance requirements.

Service
lifecycle management that bridge workflow across line of business,
enterprise architecture, software development and testing, IT operations
(data center, security, storage, and network operations), and business
operations (production and facilities) to ensure successful “go-live”
and continual improvement of applications and services.

Service
dashboards that enable audiences from executives and business operations
to IT managers to see the service and gain insight into service health,
integrity (security and storage), and business activity.

Unified
management of service requests and problems spanning business and IT
that enable work orders to be automatically routed to the right support
staff.

Asset management that supports both enterprise and IT
assets across all asset classes with a single process model and a single
data model.